Highway railroad crossings often include incandescent housings that contain a lamp bracket with an incandescent bulb, a parabolic reflector, and mounting hardware to secure these parts and focus the light from the bulb. Some crossings may be upgraded to use light emitting diode (LED) light engine technology, where LEDs are housed in independent modules design to be installed into the existing incandescent housings. All of the incandescent hardware is removed, and the LED module is put in its place.
A typical incandescent assembly contains an aluminum junction box that mounts to the signal mast, up to four cast aluminum arms used to offset the incandescent light heads for alignment, threaded elbows to provide rotational adjustment, and a parabolic shaped aluminum housing that is suspended from each extension arm. This assembly weighs an average of 26 pounds and is therefore unsuitable for raising from the ground level using a telescopic mounting tool. The assembly is also typically bolted to a mast 17 feet above a roadway, and therefore cannot be secured from the ground level. Furthermore, the entire aluminum junction box and cross arm assembly is very expensive and provides no value once LED modules are installed because the light spread on an LED unit is superior to that of an incandescent light source, so the LEDs may not need the rotational alignment provided by the assembly for incandescent bulbs.